2013 Mi Lan Dan Cong A from Jing Tea Shop in a Chaozhou pot. I love this tea more every time I brew it, and last year's batch was also very good. It has a fresh taste that coats my mouth and a slight, lingering aftertaste that reminds me of a mix between flowers and perfumey nectar—kind of hard to describe, but it's good! It is also not bitter like some others I've had.

Sipping on some '06 high fire tgy from origintea again, everytime I drink it, it surprised me again with how good it actually is. Perfect for packing a pot and doing flash steeps. Lots of espresso, citrus, islay smokiness...I'm in love Luckily I stashed enough to last me a couple of months.

Finishing up a session of TeaUrchin's gold medal Rou Gui that I started last night.It is even better today than it was yesterday. I think I started off too heavy handed. I sampled two of their other premium oolongs earlier this week that were very mild. This one was quite a bit stronger.Good mouth tingle, rock aftertaste, fruity spicy nose.Very good yancha.

Today...TTC's Lishan Spirit high mt wulong tea. My first impressions are here:( viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19102&view=unread#unread). I really enjoy this tea; It is perhaps my favorite high mt. wulong out of the various wulongs I have poured these last months, along with TTC's Spring 2013 Wenshan Baozhong tea. I've poured the tea in a glazed Petr Novak pot which brought out the high notes and a full/round/mouthwatering mouth feel. Today I pour the tea in an Andrzej Bero 70ml red clay pot. I pour 5g of leaf for 8 or 9 rounds and the tea is thoroughly enjoyable. In the Bero pot a buttery quality comes through in the first two rounds that was not prevalent in the Novak pot. The Huigan is not as insistent/poignant and bright but the mouth-feel and "dryness" are more alive, but less "full." With the first four rounds the scent cup remained bright and aromatic. Wonderful tea!

TeaArt, Sounds like you get rather noticeably different experiences from glazed & unglazed pots. Interesting how those experiences change through your infusions & how well you pick up the nuances. Thanks for sharing.

Some DTH Da Hong Pao is a welcome diversion from a few days of green oolongs. It was about $1/oz and I'm glad I got good sized bag of it, because it's quite nice. 5g in 150ml, 212 degrees, 10 second steeps. Heavily roasted, but tastes more of chocolate than smoke.

I am having some lovely Teaspring Dong Ding in a new kyusu from Inge Nielsen (http://www.etsy.com/shop/PotterybyIngeNielsen) with a yunomi from Chicagopotter (whose Etsy shop has sadly been looking very deserted for quite some months ).

Sitting for tea today, I cannot escape an awareness of the day's crisp air entering through the tea room window, nor the chaotic whipping of the chimes by a decidedly frenetic and unsettled wind storm bursting upon outstretched tree limbs. Outside, leaves bend and furl in the whipped air. Inside, furled leaves open within steaming water.

The outer mood fills the tea room, the coming Autumn, this subtle way the world changes, shifts and fills in, or empties...like the tea cup before me as I drink. The candle on the table is still while the world outside is active with motion. Still and active, I hold both in my mind as I sip TTC's 2013 Long Feng Xia wulong: it's golden liquor, the buttery, fruit, flower, herb scent of the steeped leaves poured for 8 rounds from my 150ml stone xishi pot into Petr Novak glazed cups. Many thoughts come, blowing through with the gusts. Friends, tasks, sensations, awarenesses, images....all pass through.

But what remains with this pour is the gratitude for this moment, for this excellent tea, for this practice that deepens presence and calls forth awareness.

Just got around to opening a 2-ounce foil pack of Floating Leaves Tea House Oolong which I bought several months ago. Quite a disappointment! Awful! No better than the worst, cheapest Thai oolong that I've tasted.

Remembering the ruby 18 black tea from FLT that had no flavor, & drinking this now, for me FLT lacks a reasonable minimum standard of quality.

I will try FLT's fragrant dong ding tomorrow & report on it. I'm predicting it will be better than the House Oolong. It can't be worse.